We’re entering a new era where AI plays a central role in the workday. To stay focused and productive, work management tools should be intelligent and integrated. However, disconnected tools can slow employees down. On average, employees spend over 57% of their time communicating rather than focusing on outcomes, and 59% say their collaboration tools don’t align with team preferences. Additionally, 70% of employees want AI to handle mundane tasks. In response, Microsoft has developed a modern work management solution combining Microsoft To Do, Planner, Project for the web, and Copilot, offering a streamlined experience for managing tasks, projects, and goals effectively.
The new Planner will easily scale from simple task management to enterprise project management, empowering everyone to manage their work in one place and accelerate business outcomes. Starting in early 2024, the new Planner app will be available in Microsoft Teams, followed by a web experience later in 2024. Sign up to be the first to know when the new Planner will be available as a preview, and generally available.
See what you can do with the new Planner
The new Planner is simple
Find the tasks you need, right when you need them. Manage all your tasks, to-do lists, plans, and projects across Microsoft 365 applications in one simple, familiar experience.
The new Planner is flexible
Work the way you and your teams want, from individual task management to large team initiatives. Choose from an array of templates, views, and approaches including lists, boards, timelines, and sprints to personalize your plan. Features such as agile sprint planning, team workload, goals alignment, custom fields, and task history that you use and love today in Project for the web will be available in the new Planner experience.
The new Planner is scalable
Get big picture views across initiatives. You can configure, extend, and automate the new Planner (with or without code) to meet your organization’s changing needs. Built on Microsoft Power Platform, the new Planner will enable customized reporting through Microsoft Power BI and configurable workflows through Microsoft Power Automate. It also integrates with Microsoft Viva Goals, connecting to your objectives and key results (OKR) to inform plans and provide high-level visibility.
The new Planner is intelligent
Accelerate outcomes with AI. Through simple, natural-language prompts, Copilot in Planner (coming in Spring 2024) will help you generate new plans, set goals, track status, and react to changes as projects evolve. Copilot will provide support for you and your team, making work and project management faster and easier than ever.
Integrations with Microsoft 365 experiences
The new Planner enables you to stay in the flow of work with integrations across other Microsoft 365 experiences such as Microsoft Loop, Microsoft Outlook, Viva Goals, and Teams. You can bring existing Planner plans into a Loop workspace and track your team plan alongside other project content in one place. Emails you flag in Outlook, or action items assigned to you from Teams meetings are also visible in Planner.
Task management in Planner for frontline teams
The new Planner will continue to include task management features for frontline organizations. With features such as task publishing, leaders can define the work to be done across their frontline locations and monitor completion. These features have been part of what was previously the Tasks app in Teams, and we’re carrying them forward into the new Planner.
New Planner roadmap and Enterprise Work Management capabilities
Rollout timeline for the new Planner:
Early 2024: The new Planner app in Teams will be generally available (the current Tasks by Planner and To Do app in Teams will be renamed to Planner).
Later in 2024: The web experience of the new Planner will be generally available. The features you know and love in Microsoft Project for the web will be available in the new Planner app in Teams and the Planner web app.
(Source: Microsoft)
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